I think teething process is a painful thing to go through, for both the kid and the mother. I mean, can you imagine a big hard tooth trying to break the once perfect smooth pinky gum? OUCH! And a kid of 2 years have to tolerate the pain of 20 such teeth breaking out the gums. OUCH again. As for the pain of the mother, she might have to endure the sleepless nights, a kid who suddenly became very fussy over the food or dealing with a restless kid.

I myself went through sleepless nights, for a period as long as 1.5 months! Then, I was still very puzzled with Dawn’s changed sleeping patterns. When the sleepless nights ended, i then realised that Dawn was teething! And she was teething 8 teeth at the same time! Oh My, now I know why she was so difficult during that 1.5 months!

As you can see, this is the teething chart. Right now, Dawn has all the teeth, 1-4, upper and lower. The 2 upper first molars are not fully grown yet, but had already made their appearance.

When Dawn was about 5 months old and shown signs of teething, my parents and I bought a few teethers for her. I wasn’t very particular with the types of teethers in the market and just bought anything which was of the right price and shape. She had 8 very pretty pearly whites (4 upper and 4 lower) for sometime before she started teething for the next 8 teeth (which was the 1.5 months of sleepless nights which I had mentioned). At that time, we gave her the same teethers which she was using initially. That was then I realised that choosing a teether is a very important decision.

Because she already had 8 front teeth, it was a grave mistake to pass her a teether which contain rubber parts. This is the result of our mistake.

Look at the hole (below the watermark) that was bitten off by Dawn (the purple parts at the both ends are made of rubber kind of material)! Can you imagine our shock? I thought that teether is supposed to be safe to bite on. I thought teether has no age limit. And I was so so wrong!

I had threw away the packaging and thus I could not find out whether the product had actually specified that this teether is for particular age or labeled with some caution. I mean, if there was none, it could be the negligence of the manufacturer. However, I also do not deny that fact that we as parents should also be careful with what we pass to our children.